


Pisces and the knife

by Anonymous



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Elf Culture & Customs, Gen, Lup's POV, Sibling fight, Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 18:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13129800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: With little to hope for, the twins have a fight over what to make of the future.





	Pisces and the knife

They sit in their room. Behind her, Taako is braiding her hair the same way he has done a thousand times. Brushing, separating, winding each of the locks into a spiraling embrace.

If she were a thousand miles away, she thinks, she would still be able to feel the tension rising off of him, like she used to before he would show up on campus or she'd get a sprawling letter in the mail. She is not a thousand miles away now-- she is mere feet, in reach of his quick hands and simmering temper.

“What's up,” she asks, flicking a speck away from the sheets near her foot. He sighs tremendously.

“It's just...”

And he trails off, inevitably.

“It's just _what,_ ” she insists.

He's finding the strength to say something horrible-- it's what they _do_. It's what they've done for years, and sometimes it's fun, and sometimes it drives her insane. He's never been able to bend her will, but he can always needle it, excise it, steal little bits of her away to keep.

And of course she lets him. He's her brother.

“It's just--” He starts again. “You're gonna cut your hair for _Barry_?”

She fidgets her knees under her circled arms, rolling her ankles. “Why not?” And then, in defense. “I _want_ to.”

That's always been her only reason. You don't really need a better one, if people wouldn't listen to it anyway. She aims over her shoulder; “You're not being weird about this, are you?”

Taako huffs, presuming sterness in a way that reminds her of her father.

“Says the girl dating a human,” he mutters.

That draws a sound from her chest. “Okay, _there's_ my answer.”

She turns so he can catch the roll of her eyes, and so that her braid of hair pulls away. Taako lifts both hands up and bares his palms, then claps them together in a gesture between prayer and proposition.

“I just-- here's the thing, okay. Listen. Hear me out!”

“Mhmm.”

“You,” he starts, the first half of a motion that lifts into exuberance. Waiting for their eyes to lock. “Can do _better_!”

The way he does it, it's halfway between a sales pitch and a magician's reveal; his raised hands are two syllables less than a _tadah!_

“ _Jesus,”_ Is all she can say.

She kicks her legs free and over the edge of the bed, tugging her hair over her shoulder and into her lap to finish the braid. “Barry's _fun_. I like him.” _And if he wants to marry me, maybe that's good enough._

“Only because you're _stuck_ with him,” Taako retorts. He raises a hand, preparing to count on his fingers. “Let's review the facts; he's a pasty, balding nerd. The death fixations are _creepy_. He can't digest _plant fibers_. Besides--” A pause, before the weight of the fourth. “He's _human_. You always said-- _always_ \-- that we could never trust them.”

“When I was _twelve_ , Taako,” She snorts. “Just because _you_ can't, doesn't mean--”

“ _I'm_ saying what if we get off this boat, and--”

“We might, we might not,” she interrupts. The braid sits finished in her lap, so she unpockets a tie to fasten it up. Taako holds still, like she's cut his breath in the air.

“Don't tell me you've given up,” he scolds. As transparent as he is to her, it sounds more like pleading. “This isn't-- we can't live like this. We have to get _home_ , Lup.” And a floundering, awful pause that makes her wish he would stop. “...Right?”

She shrugs impartially, banishing his insecurity from her mind while her fingers wrap the elastic around and around. “I don't know what's going to happen. So what if I want to be happy right now?” Two, three, until tight enough. “Is that really such a problem for you?”

He bristles, though she doesn't turn to look. “I'm trying to look _out_ for you.”

“As if.” She glares straight ahead and braces for the worst. “I knew you'd be like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you always are.” Hiding behind her skirts, clutching at her sleeve, begging her, scolding her, but always following. Always needing, even when he disapproved-- and he would always disapprove of anything that left him _alone_.

Her stint in magic school. Her more volatile stint in a band of rebellious bandits. Walking too fast on the road. Fighting too hard when she should have laid low. There would always be a sunrise and she would always have to chase it, and he would always be there, her little brother, if he wasn't drinking, or moping, or losing all his money so he had an excuse to call. A chorus of _no_ and _wait_ and _me too?_ Please, _please, me too?_

It was love, probably. But sometimes it made her skin crawl, knowing how he could be.

“I know you,” he says. “And you're going to regret this.”

“Whatever,” she says, righting herself to standing. “I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing it for me. My life, not yours.”

He's coiled and insisting, unmoving, but his voice trails after her. “You're all I've _got_ , Lup.”

“That's the _problem_.”

He stews, and she waits to parry the next blow. He only flops back down in a groan, giving her his back while he faces the wall.

“You're gonna have to cut it off every year,” he snipes from the bed. “It's gonna be a fucking chore.”

She leaves into the hallway, without speaking a word.

 

\--

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I took a lot of liberties with the twins' lives before the IPRE but.... I like this better. *shrug*
> 
> This uses the same headcanon that briefly appeared in Atlas in Mourning-- that elves cut their hair at marriage (traditionally), but sometimes also to symbolize adulthood/political severance from, or a new commitment outside of, their family.


End file.
